***A Choose Your Own Adventure Story. Instructions and explanations can be found in Chapter One.***
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Chapter Sixteen: Have a Clue
Guilt crashed over him as if he'd been knocked off a surfboard by a double-up wave*. His feeble attempt at outsmarting Ivan had cost Juliet. He had no idea if she was dead or had even received decent medical treatment. There was no way of knowing how bad the injury was, though if Ivan still wanted him to do his bidding, the wound was not likely to be fatal. Regardless of where the wound was, it was his fault it had happened in the first place
How could he have been so stupid?! He should've realized just how suspicious it was that the phone just lying there on the desk.
Magnum sighed and tried to push the guilt he was feeling down as far as it would go, locking it away so he could concentrate on what he needed to do to survive the day and somehow find Higgins.
Without knowing how Ivan had found out about him taking Higgins' phone, Thomas executed an abrupt about-face and returned to the main house. When he got there, Magnum placed the temporarily borrowed phone back where he'd found it. If Ivan didn't send in his goons to take the phone, or the laptop, after he left, then both items being abandoned like that would be clues that something was not at all kosher.
When he returned to the guest house, Magnum headed straight upstairs to clean up and get changed. Hawai'i might be fairly laid back in terms of a dress code, but that didn't mean he didn't still need to look presentable.
Apparently, some part of his mind had been working the problem since he'd answered Ivan's phone call, because some ideas for clues which might alert his friends to his need for help came to the fore. Thomas mentally cringed, momentarily feeling his guilt trying to break free at the thought he could be further endangering Higgins' life by leaving clues. He locked down that thought, because he knew neither he nor Higgins would survive the day without help of some kind.
After a quick shower and shave, Thomas used his need to have an appropriate, yet functional, outfit for the day to lay out his first clue. It took the form of a discarded potential outfit, the same one he'd worn when he'd encountered Ivan the last time. Magnum was banking on Rick's weird ability to remember what clothes people were wearing when noteworthy events happened in his life. Thomas could only hope saving him from Ivan the last time was noteworthy enough to pick up on the significance of the clothes he'd left out.
Discarding the "clue" outfit as if it was not what he wanted, Thomas put the other one on – a pair a jeans and a navy blue long-sleeved, button-down shirt that he rolled the sleeves up to just above his elbows. He immediately put the phone Ivan had given him in his back pocket just in case the man had somehow managed to hack his phone's camera; Ivan would be blind for the moment and would have to rely on sound only.
He quickly and quietly as possible worked to leave other clues for his brothers, ones he hoped that were neither too obvious to Ivan nor too obscure for his friends. At the same time, Magnum put a duffle of things together that he thought he might need to pull off Ivan's mission. He had to be as prepared as possible to overcome what obstacles might come his way.
Once he was as prepared as he could be, and had hopefully left enough subtle clues behind for his brothers, Thomas had to decide where to go first.
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If Thomas goes to Rankin's office first, go to Chapter Eighteen – Chapter Does Not Exist.
If Thomas goes to Rankin's house first, go to Chapter Nineteen – Chapter Does Not Exist.
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* Double-up wave = When two waves meet and their troughs and crests align, creating a large and highly powerful wave which can be dangerous when it starts to break.